I mostly play 3 medium classes: Soulbeast, Scrapper, and Daredevil, so this one affects me personally.
Initial reactions:
- The change to flanking makes Hunter’s Tactics in Skirmishing a straight 15% damage increase on a minor trait. Selfishly, yay? But it feels kinda cheap, and it essentially eliminates a key skill tactic.
- The changes to Speed of Synergy and Kinetic Accelerators is a bit of a gut punch for my Scrapper. Way less application and duration for the only rare group boon (superspeed) I was bringing to the table, and the added reliance on Hammer 3 means I’ll be flinging myself off cliffs with greater regularity as the zerg kills targets before the skill procs. Also, the Function Gyro made a lot more sense when you could save it for when you need it as opposed to becoming an integral source of blast finishers in the rotation
- My bounding-power-staff Daredevil got increased damage, but only in PvE. I guess that’s okay because he’s too squishy for me to play anywhere else. I like that they completely reworked the Acrobatics trait line, as it was in a really bad place, while random stolen skills were nerfed. I’m not sure this makes it worth taking over Trickery, but I guess we’ll see.
Overall, these look to be pretty impactful to my personal gameplay. I’ll really have to actually see how it feels in-game, but I’m fairly confident that I will not be able to ignore this change.
Flanking has always annoyed me. Let’s not talk about skill floor here please. Oftentimes it’s impossible to determine where the boss’s head or eyes are, either because it’s an ehm very unique creature, or because it does a long spinning attack. Also there are times when you have to stack on people that don’t flank or god forgive tank something yourself. It’s not a fun mechanic, it never was.
I think over time they’ll probably rework the existing flanking traits as well.
edit: I don’t agree with the argument that you HAVE TO do something for that 15% extra damage. Pve game balancing always assumed you were flanking 100% of the time anyway, since it was always factored in, might as well make it real too.
Against someone/something reacting to you this is also known as Ping Wars
You think you flank, but you don’t.
It’s not a fun mechanic, it never was.
I’ll agree with that. But I do think you have to do something to earn +15% damage.
